01:47 pmSomething just occurred to me with respect to why liberals like Clinton, but not Bush. It goes beyond the scandals. Pick up anything you'd like -- Clinton lying to the public about Lewinsky, the questions about campaign fundraising, et cetera -- the fact is still that Clinton did the right things for the country. The economy was doing well. We were in peacetime. We had some significant steps towards counterterrorism.

Compare that to Bush who plunged us into the invasion of a sovereign state on poor intelligence, riding roughshod over allies of the US, passed the Patriot Act, restricted stem cell research, and run the army out of resources. It doesn't take a Russian missile fired into Georgia to show that this isn't right for the country. It doesn't take worldwide organized marches against your policies to show that this isn't right for the country. At what point do you realize you're going the wrong direction? When gas prices zip over the $3.00 a gallon range? When China zaps one of our spy satellites? When North Korea touches off a nuclear bomb?

We shouldn't have had to wait for that mushroom cloud to be the smoking gun of presidential incompetence, yet we have.

Re: i really don't get liberals.

Well, the first quote is either incorrect or taken out of context. The fact is that Clinton came the closest to taking out bin Laden of the attempts so far with the cruise missile attack (the so-called "Monica Missiles" -- it was while he was being impeached). He also ordered the first sanctions against Afghanistan when he learned that they were aiding bin Laden.

It's been argued that the anti-terrorism legislation he attempted to pass was held up by Republicans. That notwithstanding, he did pass the Omnibus Terrorism act in '95.

You can say a lot of things about Slick Willie. Saying that he went soft on terrorism just simply isn't accurate.

I mention gas prices in particular because gas prices are indicative of oil prices which is used in virtually every sector of industry. I'll grant that a portion of the rise in gas prices is because of our own limited production -- things haven't bounced back from Katrina and Rita. They aren't perfect predictors either, but there's very little evidence that the current costs are speculative.

That, in any event, is why oil prices matter more than the price of corn, rice, or other commodities.

North Korea, Russia, and Iran's actions probably wouldn't have happened if our army wasn't tied up in Afghanistan and Iraq. Russia's message to Georgia was pretty clearly that we can't adequately protect Georgia. Iran's actions now are predicated on our inability to put up a stable government in Iraq and take out the guerilla militants.

Because our army's tied up, our options are extremely limited. By and large, we are not a military threat right now because of the limited capability of the Navy and Air Force. Things that would not have happened if our army wasn't tied up have happened and are continuing to happen.

The case against Iraq was thinly supported from the beginning. We know now that the 16 words from the State of the Union speech that the intelligence was flat out wrong. Powell even admitted it to the press shortly after the State of the Union.

The closest we've found to weapons of mass destruction are stockpiles of castor beans and Mama Fatima's stash is a long way from Ricin.

What's most worrying is that this administration had it out for Hussein from day one -- long before any of the intelligence came together -- and ignored the reason why his father didn't take out Hussein. There simply wasn't a saner alternative to Hussein.

The case against North Korea, on the other hand, was well known from the beginning and we've done precious little about Kim Jong-Il. Clinton knew about it and acted. Had the ball not been dropped in the late days of the Clinton administration -- or had it been picked up by Bush -- there's a fair chance that we wouldn't have had another member of the nuclear club.

Iran is really the most damning aspect of this. They were named as a part of the Axis of Evil. After some tough talk -- the equivalent of what Hussein claimed before we took him out -- we've given them a strong position to dominate the Middle East by taking out their biggest opponent and failing to secure the nation.